Reading vs. Audiobooks: Is One Better for Your Brain?

You Should Know: Reading a book and listening to one are not quite the same in a cognitive sense. Both activities stimulate the brain and require you to interpret language, but listening bypasses the visual processing systems that are so important for reading. As such, reading naturally engages more neural networks than listening to audiobooks. And because it’s a slower, and often more intentional, activity, reading typically lends itself better to information retention. 

Going Deeper: This doesn’t necessarily mean that audiobook listening isn’t as good for your brain as reading. What really matters here is how engaged you are with the material, researchers explain. If you’re listening to audiobooks as background noise while you do chores, for instance, it may become a passive experience wherein you don’t truly take in the story. That said, audiobooks can bring inflection and emotion to content that not everyone gleans from reading. 

Takeaway: Reading is a valuable (and fun!) way to improve and maintain cognitive health. But audiobooks stimulate many of the same neural pathways as reading, and many people find it easier to stay engaged with them. 

Bottom Line: When it comes to reading versus audiobooks, one doctor says the most important thing is “staying intellectually curious and consistently engaging with meaningful content.”